Le Monde Twitter account hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

French daily Le Monde has recovered its Twitter account after it was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), notorious for attacks on Western media accounts, including the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times, BBC and CNN.

"Hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army attempted to take
control of the Monde.fr Twitter account and managed to infiltrate
our publishing tool before launching a denial of service,"
Le Monde said on its website.

Signs of hacking emerged late on Tuesday, when the Syrian
Electronic Army’s logo appeared in a tweet sent from the official
Le Monde account. The hackers also posted the message "the
Syrian Electronic Army was here" in French, followed by the
hashtags #SEA and #Syria. Another tweet posted by the group read,
"Je ne suis pas Charlie" ('I'm not Charlie').
Shortly after the tweets appeared, Le Monde’s account was
suspended and it was impossible to access it. However, the
newspaper’s account was restored within a matter of hours.

In late November, the Twitter accounts of a number of British and
North American media outlets, the Independent, Evening Standard,
CNBC as well as retailer Wal-Mart's Canadian unit, were allegedly
hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports Syrian
President Bashar Assad. Visitors to the sites were met with
random pop-up messages accompanied by a blank screen saying:
'You have been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army
(SEA)'.